


Raising Cain

by tunacotton



Series: Raising Cain [2]
Category: FNAF, Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: FNAF3, Other, Sister Location, Springtrap - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 21:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19181389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunacotton/pseuds/tunacotton
Summary: Ok so basically I had this idea where Springtrap becomes like a pet dog to these 2 people and just kinda ran with it. This is set ~30 years after the third game ends, and honest to god I can't be bothered to keep up with the lore after that point so if something doesn't add up that's why.





	Raising Cain

**Author's Note:**

> This was gonna be an actual book but I wrote this like months ago and then lost interest, so y'all are just getting this.
> 
> Also this contains characters that I came up with that loosely tie into the canon of the games so :)

Cain asked a lot of Maudie. He called her up in the early hours of the morning to about how to jumpstart his car or fix the odd appliance here and there. The funny thing was that she always answered. She even did check-in calls during her grueling ten hour day shifts when she couldn’t come over for lunch.

There were a couple things that kept her calling, Cain figured. Her love for repair, possibly- or maybe her pride that caused her to take on any task with a scary level of ferocity. Top of the list would definitely have to be their now passion-project that literally walked in through the door just about a year ago. Well- ‘walking’ would’ve been a bit of a stretch. The thing showed up at Cain’s backdoor in such a state of disrepair that its legs seemed to be stuck at a perpetual 60 degrees. Due to this neglect and pulpy blockage around the joints, it took both him and Maudie a total of three days and fifteen steel-wool scrubbers to clean and loosen them.

Not that either of them minded, though. It brought the pair closer together with each passing afternoon of rewiring and re-soldering. The machine’s constant wariness and aggression towards Maudie allowed only Cain to make any contact with it when shut on (which wouldn’t be changing anytime soon because it didn’t seem to have an ‘off’ switch). And his ineptitude when it came to anything mechanical had probably set them back a good few months. She was grateful though, as she had explained to him:

“Some days I don’t know where I’d be spending my afternoons if you’d been capable of using a screwdriver and working up the nerve to hire a real mechanic.”

She was right, as she always was. Not only in the fact that their meeting hinged on Cain’s finicky phone line and crippling social anxiety, but also that she’s not actually a real mechanic. Or at least not the kind of mechanic that’s trained in the repair of whatever the hell they were trying to fix.

In all fairness, there probably weren’t many of those.

It would be exactly a year ago that he picked up that phone at some obscene hour in the morning. Next Tuesday, in fact. As the only real anniversary marked on his calendar, the red hot ink seemed to sear itself into the back of his eyes.

“Cain, get down here. It’s knocked the filing cabinets over again!” Said a shrill voice from two levels down.

He rounded the corner and followed the smooth-finish railing that wrapped ‘round the stairs and down into the basement of the townhouse. Nearly tripping over himself, Cain made his way into their makeshift workshop. Two figures sat beside a desk piled high with blueprints and sticky-notes. Sun from outside filtered through the glass sliding doors and painted Maudie’s face the color of hot fire. The machine sat next to her, hissing as she bent down to pick up the papers at its feet.

“You know, when someone says all the filing cabinets, they usually mean more than two.” Cain said, flipping through the remaining cabinets to make sure nothing else had been disturbed.

“Give or take a few, you know.” She joked. “For human error.”

The machine perked up at the sound of another voice, and bounded over to Cain with a grace that shouldn’t be possible for a hunk of twisted metal such as itself.

Its threadbare rabbit ears bounced with a liveliness that only served as another oddity in the conglomeration of strange that was the machine- their machine- that they loved so much. Its rounded eyes and dotted pupils that gave it a startled look, as if it had never gotten over the horror of what had been done to it. And that was the most gruesome thing about their machine- there was a very good chance that it had been human once. There was a little too much curiosity to its head nods. A little too much hope in the way its whole body un-slouched when either of them spoke to it. A little too much attentiveness in the way its eyes seemed to dart and ears seemed to turn at the slightest sound.

Cain re-adjusted the cardboard that was taped in place of the missing bit of the machine’s right ear, patting it softly on the head. It was a temporary fix, for sure. At this point the poor thing was practically being held together by duct tape and gauze, with a few extra large Band-Aids peppered here and there for good measure. They could only afford to work on one part of it at a time- and Cain was dead set on giving it a voice.

“So, uh, how much more you think we’ll need?” Cain said, gently lifting the machine’s head up to let Maudie get a good look down its neck.

She grabbed the hefty hilt of her police-grade flashlight, angling the beam down into where the damage was the worst. Wires that gave it life were frayed into tangled cobwebs that their lowly duct tape and cardboard couldn’t hope to patch. The shine of its nearly re-constructed voicebox was only made ten times more jarring by this. Maudie turned away and flicked off the light, grabbing a document off the desk and throwing it down beside her feet. “We’re in the home stretch. Problem is that the model of the piece we need was discontinued about 30 years ago.” She motioned to it, thin blue paper with even thinner grid lines that showed the exact part they needed.

“That’s good news-”

“Crap, my shift starts in 15 minutes-” Maudie interrupted, dropping the flashlight and shoving the document onto Cain’s chest. “Hang onto that, and don’t lose it!”

And with that she was up the stairs and out the door- no time to spare in her world.

“Guess it's just you and me again.” Cain looked back to the machine, which was off in a corner of the basement doing something with the wall paint. He looked down at the document- just a jumble of confusing technical jargon- and then back up. He stood in the middle of the now quiet basement, staring at the stairs a couple feet in front of him and tucking the paper into his back pocket.

“She really needs to get a watch.”

Again he followed the smooth-finish railing that hugged the staircase and rounded the corner into the kitchen. The calendar was there as it always was, pinned to a corkboard with its one splash of daunting color.

Maudie didn’t need a watch, no, she needed a vacation. Or a break. A break to unwind and work on whatever she wanted. In fact, a nice two week anniversary break would be perfect. And so that’s just what Cain did. He called up Mr. Bishop- Maudie’s boss- on his old red rotary phone and negotiated for the two week’s break.

“And that’ll be all?” Cain said into the speaker end of the phone.

“Well of course not, Mr. Afton. You really think I’d let my best officer leave for two weeks still on payroll? I’m not made of money.” Mr. Bishop’s voice came back with a slight static, every word making Cain’s stomach do flips. Maudie’s boss was an intimidating man; tall and thin with a stoic expression that could rival even the tinman’s.

“Well I’m sure-”

“It’s a no. Unless you happen to have a 70’s era springlock-cord box lying around somewhere collecting dust.” He spoke again.

“Y-yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I do happen to have one actually, not presently collecting any dust but-” And before Cain could register what Mr. Bishop had said the words came spouting out of his mouth like overflow from a dam. That box wasn’t presently collecting dust for a reason- because it was being used in the throat of the machine. Their machine. It was a huge chunk of its nearly completed voicebox that Cain had hoped would help it gain back a shred of its humanity.

“Great. I’ll make a trade of sorts with you. I get the box, and you get Maudie her break.” Mr. Bishop said, unaware of the silent panic that was now just dawning on Cain. At the end of the day, though, it was the least he could do to repay Maudie. All those nights up helping Cain, all those words of encouragement when he thought he couldn’t go any farther. Her wellbeing was more important to him than some robot, wasn’t it? At any rate, his wellbeing was more important to Maudie than the machine’s.

“F-full pay?” He said, mind racing.

“Full pay.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Cain wheezed. “Thank you so much Mr. Bishop. I’m sure Maudie will be over the moon.”

“I’ll send Ms. Weldon over at 8:00 AM tomorrow to pick it up. Pleasure speaking to you.” Maudie’s boss said, nearly hanging up.

“Wait, wait. Do you ask everyone who applies for leave if they have-”

“Pleasure speaking to you.” He spoke, cutting Cain’s remark short with the curt static of a dead phone line.

Mr. Bishop’s secretary came by the next day, and collected the box that Cain had painstakingly removed from the machine’s throat. Hopefully- hopefully- he didn’t cause too much damage with those pliers for Maudie to notice. And especially today. Because today was the day that all his work had culminated to. The box was a small setback in their long journey that they’d have with the machine- and each other.

_Knock knock knock_

Lunchtime already? Cain ran to the door- not having time to think about rounding corners or following railings- only about Maudie. He turned the knob and let her inside, with Cain being much too excited for small talk. He grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs into the kitchen, where the calendar pinned to the corkboard awaited them. He’d blocked out the next two weeks in delicious bright red scribbles, and explained what he’d done.

But instead of elation he only got a weak smile from Maudie, riddled with guilt. In her hand she held a small box wrapped in gleaming purple and gold paper.

“Cain, hon, you must have something wrong here.” She spoke, clutching the gift. “I just agreed to work overtime next month.”

“I don’t understand- I just-” He said as Maudie placed the box into his hand gently.

“Open it, I think you’ll have a good laugh.” Her smile was bittersweet as Cain unwrapped the present. Inside was the last piece needed to complete the machine’s voice box. The extremely expensive and rare piece that she was now working overtime to pay off. The piece that was now rendered useless because of Cain.

“Oh my God. You didn’t-”

“We can still have a load of fun putting this thing together on the weekends. No harm done.” She said, leaning on the granite.

“No, no, no, see- I uh- I gave the spring-box-thing away to your boss to get you those two weeks.” He said. “I figured we could use that time to try and find the last piece.” Cain said, waiting for Maudie’s face to change into disappointment or anger.

“Yeah. I’m thinking we need to work on our communication a bit.” She laughed sweetly and took the box from Cain’s hands, setting it on the counter. “But nevermind the box or the machine or the work, those things will pass.”

“Let’s just enjoy today.”


End file.
